Maomao (Yuuki Aoi) lives a simple but fulfilling life in Imperial China as an apothecary, growing medicinal plants, making medicines, and making deliveries to clients in the red-light district. She clearly loves her plants, and is also curious enough to experiment on herself when developing new drugs. But one day she’s kidnapped, and that simple but fulfilling life is changed forever.
Maomao becomes a low-level servant girl at the Rear Palace of the Forbidden City, where only the emperor, women, and eunuchs are allowed. Quick to roll with the raw hand she’s been dealt, she keeps her head down and works hard, for one day she’ll be released.
But when rumors swirl about the infant children of emperor’s two favorite concubines taking ill, she can’t help but notice that they’re not being afflicted by a curse, but by poison. Just two problems: she has been very intentional in keeping her literacy a secret in keeping with her plan to lay low, and she doesn’t possess the paper to write out a warning.
Time passes, Lady Lihua’s son succumbs to the poisoning and passes away. However, Lady Gyokuyou heeds a warning scrawled upon a scrap of cloth, and her daughter survives. The deadly culprit was white face powder, which at the time contained lead and other toxic ingredients; the cost of stunning beauty was an early grave.
Jinshi, manager of the Rear Palace overheard Maomao muttering to herself about writing a warning, notices that the warning was written on a scrap of the same cloth that made up the servant girls’ clothes, and summons them all to his office. He then writes a note asking the “freckled girl” to stay, and since she’s the only one of the girls who can read, she remains.
Jinshi brings Maomao before Gyokuyou, who offers her heartfelt gratitude for saving her child. They then have Maomao explain how she knew what was poisoning them. The lighting becomes more dramatic as Maomao tells them of her apothecary past and experience with toxic makeup through her red-light customers.
Throughout all of this, all Maomao wants to do is get back to her drab life of menial labor at the very bottom rung of the status ladder in the Rear Palace. However, despite her wish to appear ordinary and ignorant, she’s been outed as a young woman of uncommon intelligence, resourcefulness, and valor. She could have chosen to do nothing, but instead she acted, and now she’s savior to the offspring of the emperor himself.
As expected, she can’t go back to laundry duty with the other servant girls. Jinshi and Gyokuyou arrange for her to be elevated to her lady-in-waiting. It’s funny; she was humming along contented in her old life as an apothecary, but if she hadn’t been kidnapped and brought to the palace, she’d never have been able to show off her know-how in a way that caused her to rise high above her humble roots.
Now she’ll have the freedom, resources, and support to pursue her scientific ambitions. She’ll also be the rare woman who is at the palace not because of her looks (though she’s plenty cute), but because of her mind. Maomao is instantly compelling and rootable as the protagonist, full of pep and moxie, and I can’t wait to watch her navigate this lavish, cutthroat new world.
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